


Rule Number One

by KaCole



Series: Busted [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: A little angst, Episode: s06e02 Survival Instinct, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Kissing, Missing Scene, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-28 21:41:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17190824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaCole/pseuds/KaCole
Summary: Another take on the scene in 'Survival Instinct' with the plant with prehensile vines that apparently ships Janeway and Chakotay.





	Rule Number One

Chakotay maneuvers the latest gift from their new Markonian friends, a large bat with four long arms that swing alarmingly as he moves, through the ready room door. Once inside, he sees Kathryn, dwarfed by an enormous plant on her desk. The room is cluttered with other strange-looking objects, all gifts from their numerous guests.

“I'll be right with you,” Kathryn calls. “The station manager didn't tell me the vines were prehensile. I went to put some water in the pot and it grabbed me.”

Chakotay grins. He leans the bat against the wall. “The generosity of our guests is impressive.”

Tuvok, who has appeared as if out of nowhere, is less impressed. “As is their proclivity for criminal behaviour. This morning's security report.”

Kathryn flicks through the report. “A broken ODN line, some missing personal items, a damaged scanner relay. All in all, not that bad.”

“There is a second page,” Tuvok informs her.

“Oh,” she waves a hand. “Some of these incidents are a little more serious but, on balance, I still think we did the right thing.”

“There is a third page.”

Chakotay can’t resist the chance to needle the security officer. “Come on, Tuvok. After all the xenophobic races we've run into, don't you find it refreshing to meet people who value openness and freedom?”

Kathryn doesn’t care for Tuvok's objections. “As far as I'm concerned, opening the ship has been a fascinating experience and an unqualified success. I'm very pleased.”

“Me too,” Chakotay adds, never above showing the Vulcan that he and Kathryn are on the same page.

“I am pleased that you are pleased,” Tuvok says drily. “If you'll excuse me.”

Chakotay watches the Vulcan leave with an admittedly childish sense of satisfaction in his chest. He turns back to his captain, certain to school his face before she sees his smug grin.

She is standing between her desk and her chair. Suddenly, she yelps. “Ooh, ow! It's got me by the hair.”

Chakotay suppresses a smile and hurries to help.

She is tangled in the plant’s tendrils, facing her desk and quite unable to move. The sight of her pinned and helpless is rather delicious, he thinks, and he isn't going to pass up a chance to get close to her.

He _intends_ to step up behind her, perhaps whisper a hot word or two in her ear, and then extract the plant’s wandering vines. They’re on duty, after all, and if there is one rule they stick to diligently, it’s _no fooling around on duty_.

In fact, it's rule number one.

“Let me help, Captain,” he says, moving close behind her, hands lingering on her hips. It's not the first time he’s touched her there, or other places for that matter. But those intimate moments don't happen nearly as often as he'd like—they have a starship to run after all—but those occasions have certainly been memorable. So he takes full advantage of the opportunity to whisper in her ear, “You seem to be a little tied up...”

“Move your hands, Commander,” she chides him.

“You didn’t say that last Tuesday night,” he replies in the smoothest tone he knows.

“Last Tuesday night we weren't on duty,” she reminds him. “Besides,” she goes on, “Last Tuesday was a moment of weakness.”

He guffaws, as they have played this game many times before, when she pushes him away, for the sake of protocol, and the crew, and whatever other damn reasons she dreams up. But she always comes back for more.

So his reply is a variation on a theme. “And the Tuesday before?”

“Temporary insanity,” she insists.

He snakes an arm around her belly and tries to kiss her neck. “And all those other times?”

“Commander! Get the damn plant off me,” she growls.  “We've got a ship full of visitors! This is no time to risk getting caught in a compromising position.”

He knows she's right. He moves to release her, which is all well and good until he finds a vine slithering around his torso, pushing his chest closer to her back.

“Chakotay...” she warns.

“It's got me too,” he says, making every effort not to laugh.

Kathryn tries to ease him away from her, but succeeds only in grinding her backside into his pelvis.

“You might not want to do that,” he warns.

She snorts, but at least attempts to hold still. “Can’t you get the thing out of my hair?”

“I'm trying.” He’s enjoying this a little too much, and just as he manages to disentangle a leafy tendril from her locks, he feels another snake around his calf, joining his leg to hers, as if the plant can read his mind.

Kathryn’s clearly had enough. “Hold still,” she snaps. She turns around until she is facing him. That doesn't actually help, because now she is pinned to his chest, and the vines seem intent on pressing them together. “Well," she notes drily. "This is awkward."

She tries an experimental shuffle left and right, but the more they struggle the tighter the vines hold them, until Kathryn is quite exasperated. “Look, if we can pick the whole damn thing up and move it off the desk and into the lounge area, we can replicate a pair of secateurs and cut ourselves free.”

It's not a bad idea, he thinks, although the plant towers above them and looks decidedly unstable. “I can just about reach the pot, but I'll have to tip you backwards a bit,” he warns her.

She nods, and he stretches forwards, both of his arms reaching past her groping for the plant, pressing his body against hers as he does. His lips hover dangerously close to hers. Impulsively, he stops his quest for the plant and turns his head to steal a kiss.

“Focus on the mission, Commander,” she says, but her cheeks are flushed and her breasts are crushed to his chest, and he thinks she must feel at least a little turned on. He knows _he_ is.

“Aye, Captain,” he responds dutifully.   

“Do you have it?” she rasps.

His hands grip the plant pot. The leaves rustle. “Got it. Okay, let's move. Ready?”

Arms around both his captain and the black pot, Chakotay takes one slow step backwards, bringing the massive plant along with them.

“Okay, good. That's good,” Kathryn says, trying to peer past his body to help them navigate, as his back is facing in the direction in which they need to move. With the plant tangled in her hair she can't see past his bulk. “Perhaps it would be better if we turned around, so you can see where we’re headed?”

The plant towers above them, leaves quivering, and, Chakotay imagines, the plant is looking none too happy with the situation. They decide to turn on three, and manage a clumsy kind of pirouette until he is facing the direction they need to go, and now she will be obliged to step backwards.

“Right, good. We got this.” He takes a step, and then another, his confidence increasing. “It's a little like dancing.”

She smiles at that, perhaps remembering nights when they _have_ danced, privately on the holodeck, or alone in her quarters, and the other, more intimate ways two people can move together.  

“Never on duty,” she reminds him, huskily, with a wicked glint in her eye.

It's a rule he agrees with, in theory. But his pulse still spikes. “Dinner then, tonight,” he says, hot into her ear.

She raises an eyebrow and smirks. “Dinner? Or do you have something else in mind?”

They take another step forward. “We could skip dinner and go straight to sex.”

“Commander,” she purrs. “You shock me.”

“No I don't,” he states, taking another step forward. “As I recall, it's more often you who shocks me, _Captain_.”

She laughs. He loves to see her this way, without the weight of the whole ship relentlessly on her shoulders. He wishes this playful side of her had more space to grow, and that he could share it with her. They could flourish, together. If they ever get the chance.

“Hey, watch the step,” Kathryn warns, but it's too late.

They stumble together and the plant crashes to the floor. The pot breaks and damned if the plant doesn't make a pained kind of squeal and rustles frantically as they fall. He lands on top of Kathryn, amid the vines and the leaves and dirt, the plant tangling them together more than ever.  

She groans.

“Are you hurt?”

“Just my pride,” she says. “This must be the least dignified position I've found myself in a public space.”

He has to agree, and he's getting a little worried now, as the vines are looped securely around his torso, their legs, his arms, and he's pretty sure a tendril is investigating the hem of one leg of his pants. In all honesty, he really doesn't want anything but Kathryn’s hands inside his clothes.   

“It's no good,” she finally says. “Look at the state of us. We're filthy and the expression “dragged through a hedge backwards” has a disturbingly literal meaning here. We're going to have to ask for help before this gets out of hand.”

She's right, of course, but Chakotay’s heart sinks. They've done a careful job, sneaking around, to avoid giving any fuel to the rumour mill, but this will definitely cause a bit of lower deck tattle. Busted. And this time, he hasn't even kissed her.

He grumbles, but gives in. “Fine. Who’s out there on the bridge?”

“Tuvok.”

“No way. It took long enough for the two of us to respect each other after the way things ended with the _Val Jean_. I'm not having him look down his Vulcan nose at me because he's seen me all over you like this.”

“At least we can rely on his discretion…”

“Kathryn, no. He's the last person—”

“All right, all right. Then who?”

“Harry.”

“Harry?” She sounds horrified. “Absolutely not. It would be like him coming in and finding his…”

“Mother on the floor with his boss?...”

“I wasn't going to say that…” She squirms, moving her body in a way that inflames his, pressed so closely together as they are. It's definitely not helping his decorum, and her red-faced discomfort only adds to his growing arousal. If he’s honest, it feels delicious.

He laughs, and the plant seems to share his mirth, as the whole thing trembles.

“Then what _were_ you going to say?” he presses. She ignores that. Captain’s prerogative, he supposes. In the end, he suggests, “How about we call the doctor?”

She pulls a face. “Ugh, can you imagine what he'll say?”

“Well, that just leaves Tom…”

A brief silence falls between them, before they shake their heads in unison. “No.”

“All right,” she says. “Suppose it better be the doctor. At least I can wipe his memory.” He’s not sure if she’s joking.

He feels the plant tighten its grip around their bodies again. He can't move his hands at all now, and a delicate vine winds its way between them towards Kathryn's throat. Suddenly, this doesn't seem funny anymore, and a chill sweeps through him.

“Kathryn, can you reach your comm badge?” he says urgently.

“I'm not sure.” She shifts, and she feels what he has seen, the tendril travelling towards her neck. “Chakotay,” she says in alarm.

He is ready to order the computer to send Tuvok, the doctor, the whole bridge team if necessary to help them, but the ready room door swishes open and Harry Kim walks in, a PADD in his hands. He stops in his tracks, horrified at the sight of his commanding officers and an alien plant sprawled together on the floor.

“Captain? Are you all right?”

Chakotay notes he doesn't ask if _he's_ all right, but then, he is pinning the diminutive captain down in a most unfortunate way, so he can see Harry's point.

Her voice is throatier than usual. “As you can see, Ensign Kim, this plant has a rather vigorous growth cycle, and has entrapped the commander and I with its enthusiastic vines. Perhaps you'd care to replicate something sharp and get us out?”

It's as if the bloody plant hears. It begins to snake around her neck. She coughs, her eyes bulging, and Chakotay watches with horror as the vine squeezes her delicate throat.

“Belay that,” Kathryn gasps. “Beam us minus the foliage to our quarters. Quickly.”

Harry gulps and dashes off.

“Chakotay,” she rasps, unable even to move her hands to loosen the vine’s deadly grip.  

“Hold on,” he tells her.

In seconds he feels the telltale tingling of the transporter, and relief crashes through him like a wave.

#

“Thoughtful of Harry to transport us somewhere comfortable,” Chakotay says. Although arriving on her bed dirty and fully dressed is not his first choice. He usually likes to shower first.

Still lying beneath him, Kathryn shakes her head in amusement. “I think a little damage control is in order.” She and slaps her comm badge. “Mr Kim.” She uses her sternest captain’s voice. “When I said “our quarters” I meant separately. Him in his. Me in mine.”

“Uh, I'm sorry Captain. I'll beam him there directly.”

“No need, Ensign. He just left.” A second later she hit her comms again. “Janeway to Tuvok.”

“Go ahead, Captain.”

“I've had an unfortunate incident with that plant. I need a while to tidy up. You have the bridge.”  

#

After he receives the captain’s message, Tuvok glances at Ensign Kim. A quick internal sensor sweep gives him a fair indication why the young human is frowning. After filtering half a kilogram of biomass from their buffer patterns, Kim transported both the captain and Commander Chakotay to the captain’s quarters. Tuvok might not understand his old friend’s need for physical intimacy, or indeed her choice of partner, but he'll go a long way to protect her right to explore that intimacy in private.

He strides over to Kim's station.

“Due to the nature of our unique situation here in the Delta Quadrant, there are certain Starfleet protocols that are more loosely applied than they would be in Federation space,”  he says. “But most rules, we stick to diligently.”

“Commander?” Harry looks up, confused.  

Tuvok a little leans closer. “One of those immutable rules is that we respect the captain’s privacy. At all times. In fact, as far as you are concerned, Ensign, that’s rule number one.”

Kim's cheeks flush sufficiently that Tuvok is satisfied he understands, even without the rushed, “Yes sir. Of course sir. _Privacy_. Rule number one. Got it.”

#

Still on the bed, Kathryn looks up at Chakotay with a sly smile. “Commander, I do believe we're off duty a little early.”

He picks a stray leaf from her hair. “Technically, I think we're due back shortly.”

She affects a gasp of horror. “Looking like this?” She reaches up, smiling, and touches his face. “You have a smudge of dirt right here.” She wipes at his cheek with her thumb. She is beautiful, so damn sexy laying under him like this. He can do no other but swoop in and claim her lips, hoping a long languorous kiss will work in his favour. She makes a small contented sigh, grinds her body up to meet his, and he thinks he's winning, for now.

“Chakotay,” she murmurs.

He knows that later she'll say something unflattering, tell him he's an itch she can't help but scratch, and refer him back to rule one. But right now he sees something in her eyes he’s been waiting for a long time. It's more than passion or desire. If he didn't know better, he’d dare to call it love. 

Kathryn Janeway is in his arms.

Rule one can go to hell.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I value all feedback, kudos and comments :)


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